<< Previous   of   Next >> Darren Breen / The Herald  (click to enlarge) Fred Vogt turned 100 years old on Thursday. On Friday, he went bowling at Robin Hood Lanes in Edmonds, followed by a surprise party his family threw for him. Darren Breen / The Herald  (click to enlarge) Fred Vogt, who turned 100 on Thursday, enjoys bowling at Robin Hood Lanes on Friday.

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Robert Frank, City Editor frank@heraldnet.com

At 100, he's still throwing a lot of strikes

By Christina Harper, Special to The Herald

EDMONDS -- Fred Vogt's snowy white hair is neatly combed, his blue eyes twinkling. He's dressed for his weekly bowling session with friends: casual brown pants and navy shirt.

As he reaches for his ball on the rack, Vogt eyes the scoreboard on Friday afternoon. He picks up his ball and steps toward the lane. Swinging back he sends the ball rolling down the lane. Thunk, thunk, thunk … strike. It's his third of four in the day and garners him a jackpot of a handful of quarters. The crowd cheers.

Not bad for someone who just turned 100 years old.

Fred William Vogt of Edmonds was born May 8, 1908, in Kentucky. Throughout his life, he has been a cowboy, a machinist and an investigator for the San Diego district attorney's office. His eyesight is great -- he doesn't wear glasses -- and he drives himself to bowl three games every Friday with friends. They go for lunch after their sessions.

"I've lived a varied life," Vogt said. "I grew up on a farm, went to school at Berkeley and had a beautiful wife."

The people who watch Vogt at Robin Hood Lanes in Edmonds are amazed at his clarity of mind, physical strength and his sharp wit.

At 100 years old, Vogt is a proud Republican and plans to vote in the next general election, as he always has.

"I voted for Roosevelt," Vogt said. "Not Theodore."

Friends and family turned out on Friday at the bowling alley for a surprise party complete with cowboy napkins, hat and cake.

As a young man, Vogt worked in Arizona on a cattle ranch for the Perkins Cattle Co.

"They had several thousand acres," Vogt said. "I worked as a regular cowboy."

Vogt remembers the Depression of the early 1930s, two world wars, man landing on the moon, but most of all Prohibition. When he was a young boy, his dad built a cellar at the back of the ranch house. The family made soft and hard cider and sold it by the roadside.

"There was a loop road and always a lot of Sunday traffic," Vogt said.

For 28 years, Vogt worked as an investigator tracking cases on money, investment crimes and murders.

"Some were gruesome like the man with an axe who chopped up his wife," Vogt said.

Vogt married his wife, Audrey, in 1932. They were married for more than 65 years and had three children. They had a martini every night and smoked. Years later, Audrey Vogt decided that she was getting nothing out of smoking so she and Vogt quit.

To stay fit, Vogt took up fencing, probably during his 20s, he said. He became a Pacific Coast champion, winning awards and medals.

Duane Carpenter, 72, of Mukilteo, met the couple when they moved to Mill Creek. Vogt and his wife had moved to Washington to be near their children. Their daughter lived on Camano Island at the time.

"The pictures of them together and of him in his prime," Carpenter said. "He looked like Howard Hughes."

When Audrey had a stroke some years ago, Vogt saw that she was starting to fall.

"I grabbed her and picked her up," Vogt said. He crushed a disc in his back.

Carpenter talked Vogt into going bowling with a widower's group after Audrey Vogt died. Fred Vogt has been bowling for almost five years.

"He's very well rounded," Carpenter said. "Fred has a PC. I e-mail him."

Vogt joined a growing number of 100-year-olds in the country on Thursday. According to Robert Bernstein, public information officer with the U.S. Census Bureau, estimates from April 1 indicate that 90,174 people in the United States are centenarians.

The one thing that sticks out in Vogt's mind as being a wonder from the past 100 years was something that he and his wife saw unexpectedly during a hike in California.

"We saw the moon come out and it turned blue," Vogt said. "I said, 'Look at the moon. It was a distinct blue. I've never seen it before or since.' "

Vogt keeps up with current events and considers the world a big round ball floating in the sky. What people do on it matters, he said.

"The human race didn't come and think of the resources," Vogt said. "They used them and said, 'What do we do next?' "



Christina Harper is a Snohomish County freelance writer. She can be reached at harper@heraldnet.com.